Oops

I'd like to interrupt my usual flow of posts about mostly edible food, to bring you a small culinary disaster.

This is an un-Photoshopped picture of, believe it or not, a pan of wine reduction sauce. I'd poached a couple of pears (post to follow) and was reducing it over a low heat. Well...let's say I forgot about it for, err, a few hours. There it was quietly morphing from liquid to this spectacular jet black, crystallized formation. It looked and felt like a pile of pyrite. It was so interesting looking and feeling (sort of...crunchy) that I played with it for a bit before the smell got to me. Quite an amazing thing to emerge, considering the original substance was plain old wine, water and sugar. I felt rather humbled by nature.

This happened two days ago. The burnt smell has finally disappeared this morning.

Proof that having a food blog doesn't mean you are a perfect cook. Nooo no no no no. Next time you have a cooking disaster, please remember this picture and console yourself with the thought that it can't get much worse than producing a pan of alien monster.

( Yes, I shall remember to set timers from now on. Amazingly, the pan survived. Hooray for Swiss stainless steel.)

Update: the pot did recover! [1]